.
I landed, uncloaked, and reported, “The fort up there is occupied and they have a perfect view of the road.”
Our current location was hidden from the view of that fort by the terrain. The horses were taking water from a little stream while the riders were stretching their legs. It was time to start thinking about a camping spot, but this place didn’t look very good. The ground was far too uneven.
The slope above us led to the plateau adjacent to the saddleback between the northernmost peak of the Giant’s Fortress and the next peak southward. The climb was only a couple hundred paces up, but the ancient fort, the remnant of some past kingdom, was positioned to control the road up.
We traveled cross-country after the cold reception in Magrau, the previous day, in order to avoid attention. If the locals reacted so harshly to a pair of women on foot, their reaction to nine mounted adventurers was bound to be outright hostile. They couldn’t do much to a team that had our combat strength, but we weren’t here for a fight.
The fort in question wasn’t one of those ancient towers that can be seen for miles, designed in the old days when such structures could intimidate the locals into obedience. Instead, it crouched low at the summit of a wide hill at the top of the climb, to use the landscape as a shield against modern magic artillery. Earth magic could reinforce the living rock far more powerfully than it could reinforce masonry. Thus, we had not noticed it until we were almost directly underneath it.
“Do you figure we’ve been spotted?” Allia asked.
I shook my head. “If we have, they aren’t paying particular attention to us. The observation posts aren’t even manned. I think they’re just using the place as a base rather than a fortification.”
“Shouldn’t they still be posting observers?” Dilorè wondered.
“They have sentries posted at ground level, watching the road, as I said,” I answered. “For longer ranges, they probably rely on birdkin patrols.”
Allia nodded. “So, which side are they on?”
“They were in Berado uniforms,” I told her. “Those guards yesterday were just a couple guys trying to fool passing patrols. This appears to be a whole platoon in that uniform. They’ll be real Berado.”
“Hm,” Allia replied, scratching her head. “That sounds reasonable.”
I finally sat and unbuckled my pack so I could get to my jerky. All these snacking people were making me hungry too.
“It’s the largest armed force of any type we’ve seen so far,” Talene noted. “We’ve seen evidence of recent battles, but no battle lines. It would be good to know the actual military situation in this valley.”
My personal assessment of the situation was, ‘chaotic’. The towns I had reconnoitered were guarded, and the roads were barren. As Talene said, there were no clear battle lines. It wasn’t possible for outsiders like us to judge who was holding what ground, except for blatant cases like the fort above us.
“No matter what the situation is, we have to reach the area beyond that fort,” I responded.
Allie looked back over to me. “You are absolutely certain the princess is up there?”
That was, after all, the only reason we were here at the bottom of this slope up to the plateau. The point where the Wind spirit had last detected Amelia’s aura was a couple miles to the west of us, underneath the plateau.
Nobody had said it yet, but our ostensible mission from the Arelians had become more-or-less forgotten ever since the Wind spirit led me to that spot. We were focusing strictly on Amelia now.
“I’m absolutely certain that she was there,” I stated. “I’m not certain how to interpret what the spirits were telling me about her current whereabouts. I can only try to get down to that place and see for myself.”
Talene frowned, then looked over to Dilorè. “You study spirit magic. What is your interpretation?”
Dilorè pursed her lips, then told me, “Can you bring that stone out?”
I pulled out Lucy’s pouch. “Do you want me to call her out?”
My cousin tipped her head. “Call her out?”
I tapped. “Hey, Lucy, do you want to come out?”
The miniature pixie instantly appeared, hovering above the pouch. “Want!”
I saw several sets of eyes around me bug out at the tiny creature.
“What in heaven is that?” Allie said with a baffled tone.
I smiled. “This is apparently an illusion that the vodyanoy taught her. Although it isn’t really an illusion, since a bit of her spirit is present inside it.”
“Ah,” Dilorè responded with a knowing nod. “She’s a higher level spirit than I expected. She’s multi-lobed.”
In confusion, I echoed… “Multi-lobed?”
“It’s one of the ways spirits can grow. She’s the result of at least two lower spirits merging,” she explained. “They form colonies sometimes. Having more than one origin grants her the ability to split a portion of herself out as a sort of temporary clone.”
She turned to the ‘pixie’. “Lucy, may I talk to you?”
Lucy looked at me, and I realized she was seeking permission. I had no idea until that moment that she needed. I nodded and told her, “Please answer her questions.”
Flittering over to Dilorè, she declared, “Talk!”
I’m not going to try to repeat the next several minutes of conversation between the two. It was confusing, to say the least, but somehow Dilorè was able to decode the spirit’s confusing responses. But that conversation led Dilorè to the same impression as myself. The spirits could trace her presence up to a point, at which it disappeared.
“Could something have happened to her?” Brigitte wondered.
“Are you perhaps wondering whether or not the princess is still alive?” Dilorè asked.
Brigitte frowned, as did almost everyone else. I don’t think anyone had wanted to say something like that out loud.
My cousin smiled tightly at their reaction, and stated, “That Wind spirit should have mentioned an aura of death in that case. Spirits are very sensitive to the deaths of intelligent creatures.”
Allia frowned. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“I have,” I told her. “Some royal knights use spirit magic for crime investigations.”
I looked back at Dilorè and stated, “But the lack of a death aura means nothing, right? It’s only reliable evidence when they do find an aura. Its absence doesn’t mean anything.”
She nodded. “True. But since Lord Moram has had his spirits actively searching for her and networking with other spirits, I feel as though the odds are that at least one would have found a death aura if there had been a death.”
“Well…” Allie frowned, “After all, there’s no point in worrying about it. If we can’t understand what the spirits are saying without going there to see it ourselves, then we don’t have any other option.”
“Then with that settled, we have the more pressing matter of where we are going to camp tonight,” Arken noted. “It’s getting late in the day, and right beneath the noses of a possibly hostile military force is not the best place to camp.”
“That’s alright,” Dilorè stated, “Because we won’t camp tonight. The best possible time to go past that force is tonight, after dark.”
Allie’s frown was matched by most of the other mortals. Only Talene, Ceria and Brigitte reacted with nods.
“We’re riding horses, and the moonlight is poor,” Allia voiced the majority’s objections. “The Blue Moon isn’t at First Quarter yet.”
“We actually should wait until the moons have set,” Talene answered, “My night vision is equal to a full-blooded dwarf, and the beast kindred and fairies will also have more than enough light. Five out of eleven party members can see just fine. The rest just have to stay on their horses and let those who can see lead.”
Arken added, “Six out of eleven if I cast [Night Eyes] on myself. Unfortunately, that’s not a spell one can cast on other people.”
Talene nodded. “To my knowledge, only a Darkness spell called [Cat’s Eye] can grant night vision to others. Unfortunately, I don’t possess the Darkness affinity. But we need you to cast your [Sure Foot] spell on the horses. It would be better if you didn’t split your concentration with other spells.”
Allia’s voice sharpened. “And why do we need to cast [Sure Foot] on the horses?”
“Because we should not use the road which leads right past that fort,” Talene stated. “We need to avoid contact with the Berado. We’ll find another path up.”
“Just getting up onto the plateau isn’t going to be enough,” Allia objected. “If we do this, we’ll have to keep riding until dawn to put distance between us and them.”
“I’ll cast [Persistence] on everyone except myself and the fairies.”
Allia frowned. “But that would have to include the horses. They’ve been carrying us all day.”
With a smile, Talene answered, “I understand that.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she stated. “[Persistence] is Light magic. You can’t possibly maintain that much Light magic throughout the night.”
“Lady Allia, despite my appearance, I’m older than you, and I possess a large number of tricks you know nothing about. Please trust me. When I say I can do it, I can do it.”
After staring her in the eye for several seconds, Allia stated, “Your Wisdom, please keep in mind that you only represent our erstwhile employer, the Arelians. Our real mission is from King Owen.”
A wrinkle creased Talene’s brow. “I’m not trying to make this an employer’s order, Lady Allia. This is simply the best option. We already know that Arken can maintain [Sure Foot] on nine horses for that long. I am not proposing to do anything more strenuous than that.”
“He can draw Earth mana from the ground the horses are treading as we go,” Allia countered. “You cannot get enough Light mana to maintain [Persistence] on eight mortals and nine horses from starlight!”
Talene grinned and began digging into her pack, which had been sitting next to her as she commented, “One would think that Her Highness’s performance the other day with Water magic would have cured your bad habit of making absolute claims. Where is it? Ah…”
She pulled out a beautiful moonsilver chain with a gaudy-looking polished rock for a pendant. In a heartbeat, my fairy sight perceived that I was looking at a large and very high-quality magic stone with an amazingly dense quantity of Light mana packed into it.
Noticing my eyes bugging out a little, she smiled and said, “Tools of the trade. Sage spells tend to be high-powered.”
“Is your pack shielded against fairy vision, Your Wisdom?” I wondered. I should have easily seen such a strong mana source inside it shining like a lightbulb in my fairy vision. I was also beginning to wonder exactly how all the magic items she had stuffed in there could possibly fit.
After reflecting a moment, she said, “Not specifically? It has a property that would have that side effect, though. Master Miröen made it for me.”
She turned back to Allia as she put the necklace on and stated, “My Lady, this stone contains nearly forty times the quantity of Light mana that I can circulate at one time. And as a fairling half-dwarf, I have sufficient pneuma to use it all. I assure you, I can manage it.”
We waited until the sky had fully lost the last blush of twilight before Dilorè and I began scouting for a path upward, and until the moon, nearly at First Quarter, had set, before the riders set out.
For the mortals, the actual climb, picking their way back and forth, went slowly, but without any incident at all. Although much of the slope came closer to being a cliff, we were able to identify a path for them. The old switchback trail probably predated the fort and the present-day road and it was nicely distant from the fort. Naturally, to keep the horses as calm as possible on the treacherous footing, we fairies stayed away. Dilorè led them with a faint [Fairy Light] that she cast on the path from a comfortable distance above, while I spent my time circling farther away to search for any potential dangers.
Once we reached the top of the climb and relatively level ground suitably distant from the fort, we thought the hard part was over. We continued across the plateau for three miles continuing to think that, until Dilorè suddenly warned, “We have company!”
“Monsters?” Allia asked in a hushed voice once the horses stopped.
“I can’t tell, ” she answered. “They’re hiding their presence. I can’t get a fix on their location.”
I had already frozen in place so I could send out the Darkness mana for my vampire sense, since my fairy sense was showing me nothing threatening. Once I reached a dozen or so paces beyond the range of my fairy sense…
“Found them,” I declared.
